BlackLivesMatter
In ZORA. More on Medium.
Systemic racism persists in policing, and we cannot become complacent
W hile we cannot call this verdict justice, accountability seems to have come to Minneapolis. This moment feels bittersweet. Of course, it’s good to know that other people agree that George Floyd’s life mattered. Yet America’s policing problem runs much deeper than one case.
Each generation of Black people sees people who look like them killed by police brutality. My brother once told me, “I’m more afraid of them than criminals.” Ever since he became a preteen, police officers have followed him around in stores. We discussed these events — the loss of his innocence in their eyes.
Black actors settling for trauma roles should be a thing of the past
After winning two NAACP Image Awards this past year, Marsai Martin recently turned heads in an interview. When asked what type of projects she wanted to produce next, she made it clear. She would say no to any “Black pain projects.” Even at 16, the star recognizes her power and has no qualms about wielding it on and off the set.
Martin may be young, but she’s nobody’s rookie. In short order, she became a household name by starring in ABC’s hit series black-ish. Then she broke a world record by becoming the youngest executive producer in Hollywood history.
Stop thanking me for being polite when I’m angry about injustice and focus on the injustice instead
So there is this “compliment” that well-meaning people lob at me when I write conscientiously about social ills that infuriate me. I write about something deeply painful, troubling and/or problematic in our society in my own fairly measured way that feels innate to me and is not in any way meant to say anything about the deservedness of my politeness as it relates to thing that is problematic or people supporting or engaging in problematic behaviors and without fail someone, sometimes many someones, will thank me for being, “so polite.”
Instead of sharing my outrage at the initial and underlying…
George Floyd deserves a different kind of justice
The Derek Chauvin trial will be one of the most consequential trials of our lifetime. The ex-police officer who casually drained George Floyd of his life while pressing his knee into his neck as (some of) the world watched in horror is a tragic sign of the times we live in. It was the ease in Chauvin’s face and the smug look of domination and cruelty that recalled the haunting truth about White America’s love affair with abusing Black people and publicly torturing Black bodies. …
Evelyn from the Internets speaks about her viral video
It’s Monday morning, you wake up, brush your teeth, have your coffee, maybe even get a good workout in! You’re ready to start your day! You pick up your phone for a quick social media scroll and that’s when you see it:
The hashtag. The protests. The video. Another Black man, Black woman, Black child. Murdered by the police.
Suddenly, the day feels like trash and you just want to crawl back into bed. But what excuse can you give to your boss? …
Congress could have—and should have—used this moment as an opportunity to redeem America from its past sins
The Senate vote
On February 13, the U.S. Senate voted 57–43 to acquit former President Donald Trump of inciting the terrifying and violent attack on the Capitol that occurred on January 6. Although 57 votes were “guilty,” and 43 votes were “not guilty,” a total of 67 votes, or a two-thirds majority, was required to convict. This means that 10 additional GOP senators would have had to cross party lines and vote “guilty.” This, we know, was not going to happen.
This could have been the first step toward healing the racial divide that exists within this country.
According to MSN, President Joe…
Addressing the Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot backlash
No one can deny that Megan Thee Stallion is a hardworking artist. She continued to release content throughout the pandemic, and this past summer, she stirred the pot by co-releasing “WAP” with Cardi B; their record went platinum. With her beautiful curvy body and bold lyrics, the Houstonian rapper is a clear showstopper.
Fans can easily find photographs of the self-proclaimed “hot ebony” on social media and in any major search engine. Yet not everyone loves her newest photos. Her latest photo shoot in Harper’s Bazaar has some of her fans fuming. They insisted that Collier Schorr’s images missed the…
I devoured the Cicely Tyson autobiography, Just As I Am, the same week it arrived in the mail. What a life! The takeaways were numerous, but what I most appreciated about her story is her integrity. She decided early on in her career not to take on roles that she felt would not represent Black women in all our multifaceted glory. And when you survey the landscape of roles she portrayed, you know that she stayed true to herself.
Challenging the status quo is never easy for Black women — I can only imagine the amount of intestinal fortitude she…
Writer Casira Copes reminds us of the Renaissance’s most famous lesbian entertainer
When I asked writers to submit hidden history for publication at the anti-racism blog Momentum, I wasn’t prepared for the sheer breadth and depth of what writers submitted. Casira Copes sent over this fantastic story about Gladys Bentley, who I absolutely need to learn more about. Bentley embraced herself and tried to be free at a time when it was rare to be free. Copes even writes of Bentley’s letter to Ebony magazine, addressing why and how she dressed.
What a long way we have come since then.
Copes, in part, writes:
Scared for her safety, this writer doesn’t turn to her sacred ritual as often
Where I live resembles more of a slice of rural Arkansas than the outer edges of Houston, Texas. Horses on green pastures are a daily sight before reaching a stoplight. The open sky echoes the sounds of wildlife rattling under marshy bushes. My feet have swept the stretches of decades-old pavement for at least 800 collective miles while being chased under the sun over the years. As mile six turns to seven, I’ve been so deep in the zone that I’ve barely missed a dead skunk.
But for the last year, I’ve been running scared, and as a result, running…
